LeDevoir exceeds paid expectations: Lessons to learn?

LeDevoir.com is arguably the top performer among city and regional paid access sites with an uptake rate of 9.4%. As a French-language site, LeDevoir.com is a robust daily publication, the online counterpart to a 120-year-old Montreal newspaper. The company rolled out paid access in 2002.

LeDevoir.com/Le Devoir (Montreal, QC)
Daily circulation: 26,500
Monthly page views: 2,300,000
Online-only subscribers: 2,500
Monthly subscription fee: $17 (Canadian)
Uptake rate: 9.4%
ITZBelden Index: 87


It's hard to pinpoint the secrets to LeDevoir's success. Publisher Bernard Descoteaux says the partial pay wall system aims for a half paid/half free mix, but getting it right is more art than science.

"We have many discussions as to whether to add more free or more locks. Sometimes people who subscribe ask what is the reason to pay if so much is free."

Even columns by a popular columnist who writes several times a week are split between free and locked "so there is a balance."

While about half of the site’s content, including all news that is "so common that everyone knows it" is free, users must also pay to access the e-edition.

Breezing through the site is difficult unless you know French, but one thing we noticed right away is that each page is an interesting package of additional related links, choices and prompts to comment, which are arranged to avoid too much scrolling.

The site not only has unique content and voice as a French language paper in Canada, but is also much better packaged than the scaled back versions that many small newspapers who charge publish in the United States, as a mechanism to force e-paper sales.

Another key indicator is the engagement level, ie the ratio of page views to daily circulation is four to five times higher than the average U.S. paper. Clearly, building a great online site that drives engagement, is also driving paid sales. This is not the defensive strategy of small U.S. papers who lock without developing the online site in significant ways. 

And finally, LeDevoir, as the main French speaking paper in a country with portion of the population that is passionate about having a French voice, is arguably more niche that most general newspapers. Unique content is the one key to paid sales, whether its a premium channel or a tiny town with no other media coverage.

Newspaper subscribers who pay $280 for the paper may register for access without additional charge. Online-only subscribers pay $200 a year, billed monthly. A new version of the website with more breaking news launched in November 2009.

Descoteaux says site traffic never fell because there was enough free content to engage users. Weekday print circulation has actually increased 2% to 3% in the last five years, and weekend print circulation has increased 20% since the site went paid in 2002.

However, this did not happen on its own. Descoteaux attributes the circulation growth primarily to weekend sections expanded with cultural news (movies, music, recommendations, video reviews, television listings); plus new sections on tourism, cooking and politics.

The newspaper’s overall print and online strategy for content and access is resulting in Le Devoir’s best results in 10 years, Descoteaux says. Ad revenues are up even from 2008.

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.

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